Koufax

Fifty years ago, the biggest man inside Los Angeles' biggest new landmark was 6-foot-7, 255-pound Frank Howard, the National League rookie of the year in 1960 who helped break in Dodger Stadium by slugging 31 home runs, batting .296 and driving in 119 runs. Howard, 75, resides in Northern Virginia and stays informed about major Dodgers news, such as Magic Johnson being part of the new ownership group and Clayton Kershaw winning last year's NL Cy Young Award, only on a limited basis.

PHOENIX - A few hours after he was struck in the head by a line drive, Sandy Koufax walked out of the Dodgers spring-training complex Friday afternoon with a smile on his face. “I'm fine,” he said. Koufax said he underwent a CT scan to rule out internal bleeding. The Hall of Famer joked that he might return the next day wearing the new protective cap for pitchers. Andre Ethier was relieved Koufax wasn't seriously injured. Ethier batted the ball that hit Koufax. “Your heart kind of leaps out of your body right there for a second,” Ethier said.

Behold the Baby Blue Dodgers, the rug rats of Chavez Ravine. At first base, the 1992 National League rookie of the year. Behind the plate, the 1993 NL rookie of the year. In right field, a strong--and we do mean strong--candidate for 1994 NL rookie of the year. Seldom have the Dodger boys of summer seemed so boyish. There are nights for Tom Lasorda when it doesn't seem so much a dugout as a day-care center. His team is younger than springtime. Lasorda has socks older than six of his regulars.

PHOENIX - Sandy Koufax was struck in the head by a line drive Friday morning, but walked out of the Dodgers' spring-training complex a few hours later with a smile on his face. "I'm fine," Koufax said. The Hall of Famer was watching rookie right-hander Ross Stripling warm up in the bullpen at one of the practice fields when he was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Andre Ethier . "I never saw it," Koufax said. "It's one that has your name on it in the morning. " Koufax, 78, is in the camp as a special instructor.

There is no concrete reason, astrological explanation nor mathematical hypothesis why 1968 should have been such a dominating season for pitchers. There are, however, a few educated guesses: --Pitching coaches. "Collectively, the game was going in a new direction," said Denny McLain, who won 31 games for the Detroit Tigers. "The professionals had real major league pitching coaches, rather than just the managers' buddies.

Russell Martin is in town, and his presence triggers thoughts of a movie. "Escape From Alcatraz. " Martin is a Yankee now. When he gets in his crouch behind the plate these days, it is in the uniform of Ruth and Gehrig, not Koufax and Reese. Say it ain't so, Joe. Martin was the Dodgers' All-Star catcher in 2007-'08. Many considered him to be the best at his position in baseball in those seasons. He was a homegrown Dodgers draftee, part of the core built by the Dodgers minor league organization to take the fabled team to successes well into the second decade of this century.

On a blustery night featuring timid Dodgers offerings and furious Phillies hacks amid an angry stadium awash in blue blood, you know what I would have liked to see? I would have liked to see those Dodgers prospects whom they liked more than Cliff Lee. Now that would have been ugly. Who are those guys? Where were those guys? They needed to stand amid the ruins of Sunday's 11-0 Philadelphia Phillies victory to witness what the organization sacrificed to keep them. They need to be part of this Dodgers tumble into the ropes in the National League Championship Series, the team falling behind two games to one after the franchise's worst postseason loss in 50 years.

The Dodgers will celebrate their 100th anniversary season without the most celebrated pitcher in franchise history, as Sandy Koufax confirmed Tuesday that he has severed his ties with the organization. Koufax, a Hall of Fame member who served as a minor league pitching instructor since 1979, said he has resigned because he is weary of the job. Although Dodger officials called it a one-year sabbatical, Koufax said he has placed no time frame on the resignation.

Willie Stargell called hitting against Sandy Koufax like "trying to drink coffee with a fork." And so it was. Koufax, the hype-aversive legend sometimes dubbed "the J.D. Salinger of baseball," dominated the sport from 1962-1966 like no pitcher before or since. He made his mark off the field as well, refusing to pitch on Yom Kippur and retiring at his peak in 1966, after 12 years with the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers, to avoid further injuring his arthritic left elbow.

A private and reticent Sandy Koufax, one of nine pitchers selected to baseball's all-century team, appeared at a media interview session in conjunction with the team's introduction before Game 2 of the World Series on Sunday and was asked if he was apprehensive about being exposed to an hour of questioning. "There wasn't any apprehension," the former Dodger left-hander said, "but I'd almost rather have a root canal." Koufax, however, was patient and revealing.

PHOENIX - Sandy Koufax pitched in an era when major league baseball players didn't flip their bats or admire their home runs. You know, the types of things Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig did last season as a rookie that infuriated some opponents. Koufax, 78, who is in his second year as a special advisor to team owner Mark Walter, was visiting the Dodgers' spring-training complex Monday when he was asked about Puig's theatrics. "If the showmanship doesn't involve bad decisions, yeah, it's fine," he said.

Your browser does not support iframes. Like it's not cool enough to be a young Dodgers pitching star and win a second Cy Young Award in three years, how about being presented the award by Sandy Koufax? Kershaw was given his second National League Cy Young award over the weekend in New York, and there to present it was none other than Koufax. When the Dodgers' greatest left-hander spoke about the current one, Koufax wanted to make it clear that Kershaw was not his special project.

"Do I feel like it should be stripped? I mean, yeah, I do. I feel like it should be, but that's not for me to decide, you know?" - The Dodgers' Matt Kemp , who finished second to Ryan Braun in voting for National League most valuable player in 2011, on whether Braun deserves the prize after being suspended for the use of performance-enhancing drugs. "Sandy Koufax teases me, or did one time. He said, 'Why weren't you smart enough to come up with that 10 years before and I think it could be called the Koufax operation?

Most Dodgers fans know of Sandy Koufax's perfect game against the Cubs in 1965 along with the two World Series MVPs and three Cy Young Awards. The Dodgers gave out Sandy Koufax bobbleheads to the first 50,000 fans Thursday night. But some things get lost in the legend of No. 32. Koufax wasn't even born a Koufax. He was born Sanford Braun, but took the name of his stepfather after his parents divorced and his mother remarried. Koufax went to the University of Cincinnati, where he walked on to the basketball team and earned a partial scholarship.

We recently asked you to list your choices for the 10 greatest Dodgers of all time, and vote you did, as we received an amazing 12,231 ballots. So many people voted that we have decided to expand the list from the top 10 to the top 20. Each weekday at 11 a.m. PDT, a new person will be listed as we count down all 20. Remember, any Dodger, Brooklyn or L.A., was eligible, including managers, owners, announcers, etc. Points were assigned based on where you listed the person on the ballot.

It was staged and hokey, and similar to what had been done in the past. Really, there was only one thing that made it special. On opening day, Magic Johnson stood on the mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch and kept shaking off his catcher, Orel Hershiser. So Manager Don Mattingly strode to the mound, took the ball from Magic, turned to the dugout and signaled for a left-hander. And out stepped Sandy Koufax. Pure chills. The greatest left-hander in team and baseball history, dressed in a vintage Dodgers jersey, walked to the mound and the stadium was electric.

Left-hander Mark Guthrie was everything the Dodgers hoped for in 1996, and everything the opposition hoped for last season. The reliever had a bad time, going 1-4 with a 5.32 earned-run average in 62 games. His low point came Sept. 18 at San Francisco when Giant catcher Brian Johnson hit a 12th-inning, leadoff home run against him, giving the Giants a 6-5 victory. With the victory, the Giants moved into a first-place tie with the Dodgers, then went on to win the National League West title.

As Bill Singer pulls a lever on the transformer box at UC Irvine, he illuminates both the baseball field and his own role as a citizen. Once known as the Singer Throwing Machine, a 20-game winner with both the Dodgers and Angels, Singer is an anomaly in an era when pampered players have developed a reputation for taking their money and never being heard from again.

Your browser does not support iframes. Hollywood doesn't love the Dodgers? Check out the video the team unleashed Monday just before their season opener against the Giants. This puppy took some work, and includes superstar athletes (and race car drivers), comedians, movie and TV stars, singers, a rapper and two kids known for being cute. It was nicely conceived by Dodgers employees Jon Chapper and Cat Belanger, and features the following in order of appearance supposedly throwing a baseball around to get it to Dodger Stadium for the first-pitch ceremony: Kobe Bryant, Landon Donovan, Dustin Brown, Wayne Gretzky, George Lopez, Kevin Hart, McKayla Maroney, Sophia Grace & Rosie, Snoop Dog (Lion)

It was a mound of mystique, on a day of magic. Sandy Koufax threw the first pitch. Clayton Kershaw threw the last pitch. Koufax brought thousands of Dodger Stadium fans to their feet. Kershaw kept them there. In a day filled with symmetry and sizzle, Koufax summoned memories of Dodgers greatness while Kershaw offered promise of its return Monday in the Dodgers' season-opening 4-0 victory over the defending champion San Francisco Giants. Koufax threw a ceremonial first-pitch curveball that bounced, and Kershaw threw a bunch of them that baffled, completing a four-hit shutout that was complemented by one shout-out blast - he improbably broke a scoreless tie in the eighth inning with the first home run of his career.